Evil in My Town

by Karen Ann Hopkins

  “Nicolas Swarey is dead. He had a shotgun pointed at me and was ready to fire. The US Marshal shot him in the head. He died instantly.” He nodded slowly, absorbing my words. “All this time, Erin Swarey was being held in the barn cellar, against her will. She was starved and beaten. It appears that Nicolas found out about his wife’s plan to leave him. Monroe knew where she was all along. I’m not sure yet how much he actually had to do with her captivity, but he admitted to knowing she was down there. Erin had a friend who tried to help her get away, and that woman ended up in the pig pen. You can guess what happened to her.”

  The bishop cringed and his eyes darted away. He stared at the second ambulance when it turned onto the roadway. The sound of its sirens wailed over the countryside. A patrol car pulled out behind it, following it into the night.

  When the sirens faded, he asked, “Will Monroe live?”

  “I don’t know.” I met the bishop’s gaze. “Nicolas shot him in the stomach. He’s in bad shape, but it could go either way.”

  “It would be better if that boy joined his father.”

  His words stunned me. I closed my mouth and stood still. “That’s pretty harsh. I’m surprised you’d say something like that. I thought you always forgave.” I remembered back to how the Amish in the Strasburg community in Pennsylvania had forgiven the man who had shot up the Coblenz wedding. At the time, their reluctance to hold a grudge had bothered me immensely. But hearing a man of God wish a young man dead from his own community was even worse.

  The bishop pressed his lips together and offered me a patient look. “In this case, it’s not about forgiveness. The well-being of my people is the utmost importance. We must preserve our way of life. Monroe was a cancer to our other children. There was no counselling, punishment, or change of circumstance that would have kept him from the evil gripping his heart.” He looked at me with flat eyes. “If he lives, others will suffer, in time.”

  He was right. Monroe was completely fucked up. There was no way to undo the dysfunction he’d experienced leading up to the day his dad shot him. I wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t purposely sold Danielle tainted heroin with the hopes of killing her. Jackson’s corpse lying on the table in the examination room at the mortuary appeared in my mind. The teenagers were very similar. They had both come from troubled home lives, and they didn’t fit in anywhere. Would Monroe become a cold-blooded killer, like Jackson, if he recovered? Only time would tell.

  “It’s in God’s hands now,” I said.

  The bishop’s eyes widened. “I’m glad you understand that, Sheriff. It gives me hope for you.”

  I rolled my eyes and left the holy man. A team was gathered in front of the barn to begin taking and recording evidence. It was dark and freezing, but my work was just beginning.

  I was exhausted and would need coffee soon. Twenty-eight people. Dead. Twenty-seven at the school earlier in the week, and Nicolas Swarey tonight. Monroe might add to that count by morning. Then there were Charlene Noble and Danielle Brown, and before them were Makayla Bowman and Hannah Kuhns. Add Eli Bender and Ada Mae to the list. And of course, Naomi Beiler. The body count in Blood Rock always seemed to be rising.

  The bishop was right. There was evil in my town.

  38

  Serenity

  December 19th

  I stared at my reflection in the mirror. They had done a pretty good job at the hair salon. My blonde locks were swept up into a relaxed bun. Several wisps framed my face, and small lavender colored flowers were positioned just right in a few spots in my hair. I loved the contrast of the pop of color with the white dress. CJ had just finished painting my face, and I thought I resembled a china doll. By the fawning look on her freckled face, she was pleased with her work.

  CJ drew back. “You’re gorgeous, Serenity.”

  “As much time was put into transforming me, I would hope I look pretty good.” I grinned until I saw the slight frown develop on her face. I lowered my voice. “Is everything all right?”

  She quickly forced a wide smile. “Oh, yes. Don’t mind me. It’s nothing.”

  I released the deep breath I’d been holding in. The entire morning was nothing but a blur of running around and primping. I looked forward to climbing into bed with Daniel that night, and heading off to the sand and palm trees in the morning. The ceremony part was giving me fits. I didn’t understand why most women wanted all the pomp and pageantry of a formal wedding ceremony. I would have been just fine tying the knot at the courthouse, with a few important people present. This torturous day was because of Daniel. He was the one who wanted something special and meaningful. To me, the first few hours were nothing compared to the rest of our lives—now that was going to be where the real marriage began.

  The only reason I’d made it this far was because of CJ. She had held my hand the past two weeks. Every time I came seriously close to backing out, she was there, encouraging and cajoling me to this point in time, where I was only minutes away from walking down the aisle and becoming Daniel’s wife.

  “Is it Joshua?” I asked in a soft voice.

  CJ shrugged, looked away and back again. Her green eyes glistened. “I think I made a mistake. I’m miserable without him.”

  I took her hands and squeezed. I hated getting married while my friend’s own love life was a mess. The worst part about it was that there wasn’t anything I could do for her. “It’s an impossible situation. You probably did the right thing.”

  She nodded vigorously, sucking in a wispy breath. “Oh, I know, but it still hurts like hell. I love him, Serenity. But I have to let him go—he’s Amish, and I’m not.” She straightened up and dabbed her eyes. “It’s your wedding day. I will not be sad.” Her gaze strayed to the window. Powdery flakes gently fell and the street lamps illuminated the fresh snow that had blanketed the town the night before. “It’s just plain wrong for me to be worrying about my love life when all those kids died…”

  Her voice trailed off into silence and a cold chill fluttered across my skin. I had stared down murderers and barely broken a sweat. Now I was melting under the tension of making a lifelong commitment to another person. My near panic attack was even more ridiculous by the events earlier in the month. Dozens of innocent young people and several teachers had lost their lives in a school shooting in my town. It was a disgusting act of violence that most people only witness from afar, on their newsfeed or cable television. Something I didn’t think would ever happen in my own backyard, had happened. And no one in our community was unscathed by the mindless killings. Jackson Merritt’s troubled life had led to a life of horror for countless others.

  While I stood in the small room at the back of the remodeled antebellum building, with the large oval mirror and my friend CJ, I couldn’t shake the question of why—why did some people snap and go off the rails, while the rest of us dealt with our problems, depression, or anxiety? Why did Jackson Merritt really do it? Could he have been stopped before he snapped, or was it an event that the freedoms we hold dear in our country made inevitable? There were no good answers to these questions, at least not right now. Perhaps in time we’d figure it all out, but I feared that at the base of it all was the reality that evil did exist. And that wickedness was here to stay.

  My thoughts lingered to the curse that was supposedly laid on our town two hundred years earlier when outlaws butchered a Native American family down by the river, and a church congregation on the hill overlooking Blood Rock. I wasn’t usually a superstitious person, but in the past year, I’d witnessed acts that made me begin to question my own belief system. Everything wasn’t always black and white, good or evil. A hell of a lot of things couldn’t be explained away by science or rational thinking, like what had happened at the Swarey farm. A family was completely destroyed—the father dead and the mother’s mind nearly broken. Monroe had survived the gunshot wound to his stomach, but he had a long road to recovery ahead of him, and
a jail cell waiting for him when he was released from the hospital. Monroe’s admissions about Danielle Brown had led to several other fentanyl overdoses, and his drug supplier. He was implicated in those deaths, along with conspiracy to kidnapping charges regarding his mother.

  Erin Swarey had insisted that her husband had accidently killed her friend, Charlene Noble, in a fit of rage. When he caught the woman in his home, helping his wife escape her life with him, he’d shoved the woman and she had fallen, striking her head on the corner of a chest. The forensic tests had proven that the red smudge on the chest was in fact, Charlene’s blood. If Erin’s story was true, it meant her poor friend was at least dead when she was thrown in with the pigs.

  “Stop it!” CJ took my hands and tugged me to the door. “Let go of the awful memories. It’s time to get married.”

  The knock at the door yanked me from my dark thoughts. CJ looked at me and I nodded. She cracked the door open to see who it was. My sister came in, with Taylor in tow.

  “Oh my, gosh, Serenity. You look beautiful.” Laura gave me a quick hug. “I wish Mom and Dad were here to see you walk down the aisle.”

  Dad and Mom had been gone for five years. Dad had died from complications following heart surgery, and feisty Mom had passed away later that same year after a long battle with cancer. The second half of their lives had been plagued by illness, but they’d still made it to forty happy years together. It pinched my heart that they weren’t here to share this day with us, and I’d always feel bad that Daniel didn’t get to meet them. But I knew them, and they’d want me to embrace happiness and not shed any tears on their account. I’d already done that enough years ago. Laura, as the oldest sister, had stepped in to take their places. I rarely thought of them anymore. Occasionally, some milestone would occur that made them suddenly appear in my mind. This was one those occasions. I worked hard to keep from crying when I looked at my sister. “Dad would have laughed, and Mom would have said something inappropriate.”

  I grinned and she chuckled.

  “Yep. That’s how they would have reacted,” Laura said.

  “Is your husband here?” I asked carefully, watching the expression on my sister’s face go from a smile to an even deeper one.

  She nodded. “With everything that Taylor went through,” she glanced at her daughter “we’ve decided to make our marriage work. We have so many blessings. Our problems seem trivial now.”

  This time, I couldn’t keep the tears from pooling in my eyes. I threw my arms around Laura and Taylor. “I’m so happy to hear it. That’s wonderful news.”

  “Thanks for being there for Taylor when she needed you most,” Laura whispered in my ear.

  I tussled Taylor’s hair. She jumped back, trying to protect the fancy curls that the hairdresser had created for the wedding. “That’s what aunts are supposed to do, right?”

  “Maybe if they’re also the town’s sheriff,” Taylor said, smirking.

  She looked so different than when we pulled her out of that murky hole in the barn. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes bright. The long-sleeved purple dress she wore covered the bandage on her arm and the hemline was just long enough to cover the sutures from the bite on her leg. Taylor’s frame of mind was improving every day. Kids were resilient and I hoped that my niece could truly move past the terrors that she had experienced.

  CJ handed me a tissue and forced me to stand still while she brushed some makeup below my eyes and over my cheeks. “No more emotions! Your face will not hold up if you begin crying.”

  I raised my hands, fending her off. “I’m fine.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Why don’t we get this over with,” I suggested.

  “Are you ready?” Laura asked.

  “As ready as I’m ever going to be.”

  CJ handed Taylor and Laura their bouquets and lined them up. She peeked out the door. “It’s time,” she breathed.

  The music drifted in through the doorway. I stared down at the white and purple flowers in my hands. My legs turned to jelly and I swayed a bit.

  This was it. It was really happening.

  39

  Serenity

  Will winked and I smiled back. My nephew was eight inches taller than me, but I still remembered when he used to snuggle up beside me on the couch and I’d read the Harry Potter books to him. He had flown from Montana back to Blood Rock the day before, and he hadn’t come alone. The girl he’d introduced was an equestrian like him. She was friendly and down to earth. I was glad that he’d found someone special and that he had moved on from his tragic relationship with the Amish girl, Naomi Beiler.

  He took his sister’s arm and they led the procession up the aisle way that had been created between the white folding chairs. A garland of pine, peppered with purple flowers, connected the chairs. In front of the large room was a fireplace. It had an ornate wooden mantel piece. A happy fire danced in the logs, warming the high-ceilinged room. More garland rested across the hearth and flowers decorated the place where Daniel and I would stand.

  Daniel was there, waiting for me. I spied on him from the gap in the doorway. He stood tall and proud in front of the guests. His thick, dark hair was brushed neatly, and he’d trimmed his jawline just enough to still have a sexy shading of stubble, like I’d requested. He looked more comfortable in his purple tie and black suit than I felt in my long dress. A smile fluttered on his lips and I wondered if he could have possibly seen me spying on him from across the room.

  Todd saluted me before he joined CJ and they followed my niece and nephew up the aisle. He wore his usual smirk, and when his head dipped down to say something into CJ’s ear, she shook with laughter. I imagined he’d said something sarcastic about the fact that I was actually getting married. Out of all of my friends, he’d been the most supportive and contradicting. One minute he was praising my decision, and the next he was saying prayers for Daniel. Todd had been annoying me since we were kids. I was sure nothing would change after I was married.

  Since all of Daniel’s closest friends and family were Amish, they hadn’t been allowed to attend the wedding, let alone serve as a best man. So, Daniel chose his future brother-in-law for the part. It seemed fitting that my sister had the opportunity to walk down the aisle with her husband once again. And at the time we’d made plans, we’d hoped it might rekindle the spark in their marriage. It seemed to have worked. They smiled at each other when they locked arms.

  My stomach rolled in waves when I stepped through the doorway. I found Bobby standing to the side, waiting for me. He looked very dapper in his purple vest and black suit. He dipped his gray head in a curt nod and offered his arm.

  The music sounded far away. Bobby mumbled something about my dress, but I didn’t understand him. Our steps were slow, similar to walking through deep snow. I concentrated on lifted my feet and putting them back down. Familiar faces popped up everywhere in the sea of people. The mayor waved and Elayne Weaver smiled brightly. Heather, Todd’s wife, was trying to quiet their baby, but she glanced up in time to see me walk by. She gave me a thumbs up. Deputy Jeremy Dickens, and Rosie, the receptionist, sat together. Nancy leaned out over the garland to touch my arm when I came close.

  “I am so jealous.” Nancy smacked her lips and winked.

  The slinky look on her face loosened me up. I couldn’t help smirking back at the older woman.

  The walk seemed to take forever, but when I reached the preacher, it wasn’t nearly long enough. Bobby released me and I took the last two steps by myself to stop in front of the podium, beside Daniel. His hand enclosed around mine and he grinned at me. There was a twinkle in his eyes that promised kisses in the dark. I loved that look. It made my knees weak, but in a good way. When the butterflies exploded in my belly, I asked myself again, how did I get so lucky? I didn’t deserve this handsome and gentle man looking down at me. We’d sure had our ups and downs, but I was so thankful he’d picked me. I n
ever would have survived the murder and mayhem of the past year without him. My eyes passed over his muscled shoulders and his set jawline and I knew he’d be my rock for future criminal investigations. Not to mention life in general.

  I reluctantly tore my eyes from my almost husband to stare at the pastor. Daniel had insisted that we were married by a man of God. I agreed on the condition that I wouldn’t have to join a church or commit myself to weekly Sunday services. The only thing this particular preacher requested was that Daniel and I meet with him one time to discuss the wedding and our future life together. We did just that a few days earlier, and our discussion had gone from the usual man and wife mumbo jumbo to my job and the recent horrific events in Blood Rock. The pastor’s wisdom had given me hope that even though evil walked among us, so did many good people. And that I wasn’t alone in my battle to save people from that evil. The meeting with the pastor reminded me of the many occasions when the bishop or other people in the Amish community had talked about faith and what it actually meant. When my eyes met the pastor’s, he smiled reassuringly, and I let out a slow breath. He hadn’t judged me, and I was happy for that.

  A disturbance at the back of the room turned all of our heads. Cold air blew in from the entryway as the doors pushed open. I couldn’t believe my eyes. A crowd of dark cloaked people emerged from the snowy exterior.

  Daniel stiffened beside me and I glanced up. His eyes were watering and his lips trembled slightly. He gripped my hand tighter and his mouth spread into a wide smile.

  Bishop Aaron Esch led the way to the only empty row of seats. Moses and Anna Bachman were right behind him. Daniel’s sister Rebecca lifted her hand and I waved back. She nudged her husband forward. Sarah, Christina, and the rest of the Daniel’s nieces and nephews lined up against the back wall. I caught Taylor and Sarah exchange silent words. It seemed their friendship was the real deal. It would forever be tested because of their different cultures, but it might survive in the end. Lester Lapp and his crazy wife, Ester, came through the doorway next, along with their son Mervin and his girlfriend, Verna. Katherine’s doll-like face was smiling as she stepped up beside her husband, Joseph.